‘Then I will get to my business without delay. I thought it might interest you to know that I propose to bring a counter-petition against my wife, and I shall make you co-respondent.’
‘You infamous blackguard!’ cried Arthur furiously. ‘You know as well as I do that your wife is above suspicion.’
‘I know that she left my hotel in your company, and has been living since under your protection.’
Arthur grew livid with rage. He could hardly restrain himself from knocking the man down. He gave a short laugh.
‘You can do what you like. I’m really not frightened.’
‘The innocent are so very incautious. I assure you that I can make a good enough story to ruin your career and force you to resign your appointments at the various hospitals you honour with your attention.’
‘You forget that the case will not be tried in open court,’ said Arthur.
Haddo looked at him steadily. He did not answer for a moment.
‘You’re quite right,’ he said at last, with a little smile. ‘I had forgotten that.’
‘Then I need not detain you longer.’
Oliver Haddo got up. He passed his hand reflectively over his huge face. Arthur watched him with scornful eyes. He touched a bell, and the servant at once appeared.
‘Show this gentleman out.’
Not in the least disconcerted, Haddo strolled calmly to the door.
Arthur gave a sigh of relief, for he concluded that Haddo would not show fight. His solicitor indeed had already assured him that Oliver would not venture to defend the case.
Margaret seemed gradually to take more interest in the proceedings, and she was full of eagerness to be set free. She did not shrink from the unpleasant ordeal of a trial. She could talk of Haddo with composure. Her friends were able to persuade themselves that in a little while she would be her old self again, for she was growing stronger and more cheerful; her charming laughter rang through the little house as it had been used to do in the Paris studio. The case was to come on at the end of July, before the long vacation, and Susie had agreed to take Margaret abroad as soon as it was done.
But presently a change came over her. As the day of the trial drew nearer, Margaret became excited and disturbed; her gaiety deserted her, and she fell into long, moody silences. To some extent this was comprehensible, for she would have to disclose to callous ears the most intimate details of her married life; but at last her nervousness grew so marked that Susie could no longer ascribe it to natural causes. She thought it necessary to write to Arthur about it.
My Dear Arthur:
I don’t know what to make of Margaret, and I wish you would come down and see her. The good-humour which I have noticed in her of late has given way to a curious irritability. She is so restless that she cannot keep still for a moment. Even when she is sitting down her body moves in a manner that is almost convulsive. I am beginning to think that the strain from which she suffered is bringing on some nervous disease, and I am really alarmed. She walks about the house in a peculiarly aimless manner, up and down the stairs, in and out of the garden. She has grown suddenly much more silent, and the look has come back to her eyes which they had when first we brought her down here. When I beg her to tell me what is troubling her, she says: ‘I’m afraid that something is going to happen.’ She will not or cannot explain what she means. The last few weeks have set my own nerves on edge, so that I do not know how much of what I observe is real, and how much is due to my fancy; but I wish you would come and put a little courage into me. The oddness of it all is making me uneasy, and I am seized with preposterous terrors. I don’t know what there is in Haddo that inspires me with this unaccountable dread. He is always present to my thoughts. I seem to see his dreadful eyes and his cold, sensual smile. I wake up at night, my heart beating furiously, with the consciousness that something quite awful has happened.
Oh, I wish the trial were over, and that we were happy in Germany.
Yours ever
SUSAN BOYD
Susie took a certain pride in her common sense, and it was humiliating to find that her nerves could be so distraught. She was worried and unhappy. It had not been easy to take Margaret back to her bosom as if nothing had happened. Susie was human; and, though she did ten times more than could be expected of her, she could not resist a feeling of irritation that Arthur sacrificed her so calmly. He had no room for other thoughts, and it seemed quite natural to him that she should devote herself entirely to Margaret’s welfare.
Susie walked some way along the road to post this letter and then went to her room. It was a wonderful night, starry and calm, and the silence was like balm to her troubles. She sat at the window for a long time, and at last, feeling more tranquil, went to bed. She slept more soundly than she had done for many days. When she awoke the sun was streaming into her room, and she gave a deep sigh of delight. She could see trees from her bed, and blue sky. All her troubles seemed easy to bear when the world was so beautiful, and she was ready to laugh at the fears that had so affected her.
She got up, put on a dressing-gown, and went to Margaret’s room. It was empty. The bed had not been slept in. On the pillow was a note.
It’s no good; I can’t help myself. I’ve gone back to him. Don’t trouble about me any more. It’s quite hopeless and useless.
M
Susie gave a little gasp. Her first thought was for Arthur, and she uttered a wail of sorrow because he must be cast again into the agony of desolation. Once more she had to break the dreadful news. She dressed hurriedly and ate some breakfast. There was no train till nearly eleven, and she had to bear her impatience as best she could. At last it was time to start, and she put on her gloves. At that moment the door was opened, and Arthur came in.
She gave a cry of terror and turned pale.
‘I was just coming to London to see you,’ she faltered. ‘How did you find out?’
‘Haddo sent me a box of chocolates early this morning with a card on which was written: I think the odd trick is mine.’
This cruel vindictiveness, joined with a schoolboy love of taunting the vanquished foe, was very characteristic. Susie gave Arthur Burdon the note which she had found in Margaret’s room. He read it and then thought for a long time.
‘I’m afraid she’s right,’ he said at length. ‘It seems quite hopeless. The man has some power over her which we can’t counteract.’
Susie wondered whether his strong scepticism was failing at last. She could not withstand her own feeling that there was something preternatural about the hold that Oliver had over Margaret. She had no shadow of a doubt that he was able to affect his wife even at a distance, and was convinced now that the restlessness of the last few days was due to this mysterious power. He had been at work in some strange way, and Margaret had been aware of it. At length she could not resist and had gone to him instinctively: her will was as little concerned as when a chip of steel flies to a magnet.
‘I cannot find it in my heart now to blame her for anything she has done,’ said Susie. ‘I think she is the victim of a most lamentable fate. I can’t help it. I must believe that he was able to cast a spell on her; and to that is due all that has happened. I have only pity for her great misfortunes.’
‘Has it occurred to you what will happen when she is back in Haddo’s hands?’ cried Arthur. ‘You know as well as I do how revengeful he is and how hatefully cruel. My heart bleeds when I think of the tortures, sheer physical tortures, which she may suffer.’
He walked up and down in desperation.
‘And yet there’s nothing whatever that one can do. One can’t go to the police and say that a man has cast a magic spell on his wife.’
‘Then you believe it too?’ said Susie.
‘I don’t know what I believe now,’ he cried. ‘After all, we can’t do anything if she chooses to go back to her husband. She’s apparently her own mistress.’ He wrung his hands. ‘And I’m imprisoned in London! I can’t leave it for a day. I ought not to be
here now, and I must get back in a couple of hours. I can do nothing, and yet I’m convinced that Margaret is utterly wretched.’
Susie paused for a minute or two. She wondered how he would accept the suggestion that was in her mind.
‘Do you know, it seems to me that common methods are useless. The only chance is to fight him with his own weapons. Would you mind if I went over to Paris to consult Dr Porhoët? You know that he is learned in every branch of the occult, and perhaps he might help us.’
But Arthur pulled himself together.
‘It’s absurd. We mustn’t give way to superstition. Haddo is merely a scoundrel and a charlatan. He’s worked on our nerves as he’s worked on poor Margaret’s. It’s impossible to suppose that he has any powers greater than the common run of mankind.’
‘Even after all you’ve seen with your own eyes?’
‘If my eyes show me what all my training assures me is impossible, I can only conclude that my eyes deceive me.’
‘Well, I shall run over to Paris.’
XIII
SOME WEEKS LATER Dr Porhoët was sitting among his books in the quiet, low room that overlooked the Seine. He had given himself over to a pleasing melancholy. The heat beat down upon the noisy streets of Paris, and the din of the great city penetrated even to his fastness in the Île Saint Louis. He remembered the cloud-laden sky of the country where he was born, and the south-west wind that blew with a salt freshness. The long streets of Brest, present to his fancy always in a drizzle of rain, with the lights of cafés reflected on the wet pavements, had a familiar charm. Even in foul weather the sailor-men who trudged along them gave one a curious sense of comfort. There was delight in the smell of the sea and in the freedom of the great Atlantic. And then he thought of the green lanes and of the waste places with their scented heather, the fair broad roads that led from one old sweet town to another, of the Pardons and their gentle, sad crowds. Dr Porhoët gave a sigh.
‘It is good to be born in the land of Brittany,’ he smiled.
But his bonne showed Susie in, and he rose with a smile to greet her. She had been in Paris for some time, and they had seen much of one another. He basked in the gentle sympathy with which she interested herself in all the abstruse, quaint matters on which he spent his time; and, divining her love for Arthur, he admired the courage with which she effaced herself. They had got into the habit of eating many of their meals together in a quiet house opposite the Cluny called La Reine Blanche, and here they had talked of so many things that their acquaintance was grown into a charming friendship.
‘I’m ashamed to come here so often,’ said Susie, as she entered. ‘Matilde is beginning to look at me with a suspicious eye.’
‘It is very good of you to entertain a tiresome old man,’ he smiled, as he held her hand. ‘But I should have been disappointed if you had forgotten your promise to come this afternoon, for I have much to tell you.’
‘Tell me at once,’ she said, sitting down.
‘I have discovered an MS. at the library of the Arsenal this morning that no one knew anything about.’
He said this with an air of triumph, as though the achievement were of national importance. Susie had a tenderness for his innocent mania; and, though she knew the work in question was occult and incomprehensible, congratulated him heartily.
‘It is the original version of a book by Paracelsus. I have not read it yet, for the writing is most difficult to decipher, but one point caught my eye on turning over the pages. That is the gruesome fact that Paracelsus fed the homunculi he manufactured on human blood. One wonders how he came by it.’
Susie gave a little start, which Dr Porhoët noticed.
‘What is the matter with you?’
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly.
He looked at her for a moment, then proceeded with the subject that strangely fascinated him.
‘You must let me take you one day to the library of the Arsenal. There is no richer collection in the world of books dealing with the occult sciences. And of course you know that it was at the Arsenal that the tribunal sat, under the suggestive name of chambre ardente, to deal with cases of sorcery and magic?’
‘I didn’t,’ smiled Susie.
‘I always think that these manuscripts and queer old books, which are the pride of our library, served in many an old trial. There are volumes there of innocent appearance that have hanged wretched men and sent others to the stake. You would not believe how many persons of fortune, rank, and intelligence, during the great reign of Louis XIV, immersed themselves in these satanic undertakings.’
Susie did not answer. She could not now deal with these matters in an indifferent spirit. Everything she heard might have some bearing on the circumstances which she had discussed with Dr Porhoët times out of number. She had never been able to pin him down to an affirmation of faith. Certain strange things had manifestly happened, but what the explanation of them was, no man could say. He offered analogies from his well-stored memory. He gave her books to read till she was saturated with occult science. At one moment, she was inclined to throw them all aside impatiently, and, at another, was ready to believe that everything was possible.
Dr Porhoët stood up and stretched out a meditative finger. He spoke in that agreeably academic manner which, at the beginning of their acquaintance, had always entertained Susie, because it contrasted so absurdly with his fantastic utterances.
‘It was a strange dream that these wizards cherished. They sought to make themselves beloved of those they cared for and to revenge themselves on those they hated; but, above all, they sought to become greater than the common run of men and to wield the power of the gods. They hesitated at nothing to gain their ends. But Nature with difficulty allows her secrets to be wrested from her. In vain they lit their furnaces, and in vain they studied their crabbed books, called up the dead, and conjured ghastly spirits. Their reward was disappointment and wretchedness, poverty, the scorn of men, torture, imprisonment, and shameful death. And yet, perhaps after all, there may be some particle of truth hidden away in these dark places.’
‘You never go further than the cautious perhaps,’ said Susie. ‘You never give me any definite opinion.’
‘In these matters it is discreet to have no definite opinion,’ he smiled, with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘If a wise man studies the science of the occult, his duty is not to laugh at everything, but to seek patiently, slowly, perseveringly, the truth that may be concealed in the night of these illusions.’
The words were hardly spoken when Matilde, the ancient bonne, opened the door to let a visitor come in. It was Arthur Burdon. Susie gave a cry of surprise, for she had received a brief note from him two days before, and he had said nothing of crossing the Channel.
‘I’m glad to find you both here,’ said Arthur, as he shook hands with them.
‘Has anything happened?’ cried Susie.
His manner was curiously distressing, and there was a nervousness about his movements that was very unexpected in so restrained a person.
‘I’ve seen Margaret again,’ he said.
‘Well?’
He seemed unable to go on, and yet both knew that he had something important to tell them. He looked at them vacantly, as though all he had to say was suddenly gone out of his mind.
‘I’ve come straight here,’ he said, in a dull, bewildered fashion. ‘I went to your hotel, Susie, in the hope of finding you; but when they told me you were out, I felt certain you would be here.’
‘You seem worn out, cher ami,’ said Dr Porhoët, looking at him. ‘Will you let Matilde make you a cup of coffee?’
‘I should like something,’ he answered, with a look of utter weariness.
‘Sit still for a minute or two, and you shall tell us what you want to when you are a little rested.’
Dr Porhoët had not seen Arthur since that afternoon in the previous year when, in answer to Haddo’s telegram, he had gone to the studio in the Rue Campagne Première. He watched him
anxiously while Arthur drank his coffee. The change in him was extraordinary; there was a cadaverous exhaustion about his face, and his eyes were sunken in their sockets. But what alarmed the good doctor most was that Arthur’s personality seemed thoroughly thrown out of gear. All that he had endured during these nine months had robbed him of the strength of purpose, the matter-of-fact sureness, which had distinguished him. He was now unbalanced and neurotic.
Arthur did not speak. With his eyes fixed moodily on the ground, he wondered how much he could bring himself to tell them. It revolted him to disclose his inmost thoughts, yet he was come to the end of his tether and needed the doctor’s advice. He found himself obliged to deal with circumstances that might have existed in a world of nightmare, and he was driven at last to take advantage of his friend’s peculiar knowledge.
Returning to London after Margaret’s flight, Arthur Burdon had thrown himself again into the work which for so long had been his only solace. It had lost its savour; but he would not take this into account, and he slaved away mechanically, by perpetual toil seeking to deaden his anguish. But as the time passed he was seized on a sudden with a curious feeling of foreboding, which he could in no way resist; it grew in strength till it had all the power of an obsession, and he could not reason himself out of it. He was sure that a great danger threatened Margaret. He could not tell what it was, nor why the fear of it was so persistent, but the idea was there always, night and day; it haunted him like a shadow and pursued him like remorse. His anxiety increased continually, and the vagueness of his terror made it more tormenting. He felt quite certain that Margaret was in imminent peril, but he did not know how to help her. Arthur supposed that Haddo had taken her back to Skene; but, even if he went there, he had no chance of seeing her. What made it more difficult still, was that his chief at St Luke’s was away, and he was obliged to be in London in case he should be suddenly called upon to do some operation. But he could think of nothing else. He felt it urgently needful to see Margaret. Night after night he dreamed that she was at the point of death, and heavy fetters prevented him from stretching out a hand to help her. At last he could stand it no more. He told a brother surgeon that private business forced him to leave London, and put the work into his hands. With no plan in his head, merely urged by an obscure impulse, he set out for the village of Venning, which was about three miles from Skene.
The Great Exotic Novels and Short Stories of Somerset Maugham Page 58
